In recent months the Engineering Council has taken part in significant consultations, reviews and conferences working with international partners to make sure the skills and qualifications of our professionally registered engineers and technicians are recognised abroad. Key activities include the following highlights.

National Action Plan

The Engineering Council has been widely engaged in the transparency and mutual evaluation exercise leading to the creation of the UK’s National Action Plan regarding professional regulation in the UK. The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills submitted the Action Plan to the EU Commission in January 2016, a requirement for all EU Member States. It is part of the process of transposing EU Directive 2013/55 on the Recognition of Professional Qualifications into UK legislation.

Survey

A survey of professional engineering institutions was carried out in February to collect information about their approach to assessing engineers without exemplifying academic qualifications, also referred to as the experiential route. Findings will support work to help the Engineering Council’s international partners understand this process with the ultimate aim of producing a leaflet geared towards these partners. Many other countries do not have individual routes to registration and the organisation is working to ensure that those listed on the national Register who have become registered in this way get the appropriate recognition in other countries.

EUR-ACE®

Following a EUR-ACE® review in 2014, the Engineering Council has been given an unconditional extension for five years. It was additionally confirmed that the EUR-ACE® Bachelor label can be awarded to IEng accredited programmes, providing these have a workload of at least 180 European Credits (ECTS). The number of UK universities taking up the labels is growing and several universities have renewed their EUR-ACE® labels following re-accreditation. As part of the Engineering Council’s major project to replace its database of accredited programmes, all programmes listed will include information about international recognition, such as inclusion in the FEANI INDEX and whether a EUR-ACE® label has been issued. The first phase of this project is due to launch towards the end of 2016.